ADDRESS 



ALUMNI OF KENYON COLLEGE, 



JUNE 33, 1880 



BY 



STANLEY MATTHEWS. 



CINCINNATI: 
EOBEET CLARKE & 00. 

1880. 



■\j^ 



.^' 






VP . jt\ ADDRESS 



TO 



ALUMNI OF KENYON COLLEGE, 



JUNE Q3, 1880 



BY 

STANLEY MATTHEWS. 



CINX'INNATI : 
ROBEET CLAEKE & CO. 

1880. 



ADDRESS. 



Forty collegiate years have been registered in the 
annals of our Alma Mater, since there went from her 
halls a class of nine. Six still survive. Each in his 
chosen and allotted sphere continues to carry on, from 
day to day, according to his ability and opportunity, his 
share and part in the work of the world : not, perhaps, 
with the bounding enthusiasm with which he set out upon 
the journey, does he make his daily stage ; yet, I trust 
still cheerily, steadily and bravely trudging onward, with 
hardened muscle and unflagging resolution, bearing bur- 
dens of years, of care, of responsibility, perhaps of griefs 
and disappointments, upon backs a little bent, but with 
faces turned upward to the nearer skies. There is, per- 
haps, not one of these lives — it is true, possibly, of all 
human lives — that would not yield to the skill of literary 
art enough of light and shade and various human experi- 
ence to furnish material for a romance ; some of them 
have, no doubt, been acted epics, with examples of 
disinterested sacrifice, uncomplaining endurance, and 
lofty heroism, fit for a poet's theme. Two have labored 
as Christian missionaries in far oflF China, where one still 

(3) 



[4] 

abides to teach the supercilious wisdom of that ancient 
civilization, where and how to find that knowledge which 
is the light and life of the world. Another, a born 
Greek, with the inherited keenness and vivacity of his 
race, is administrator of one of the great educational 
charities of our metropolitan city of New York. Some 
have laid aside their burdens and found their rest ; and 
others wait but to hand their names and places to those 
who, in the order of nature, are to succeed to them. It 
is the familiar story of ten thousand lives, which can 
never grow stale or common, but to every human soul 
has the ever present and tremendous significance of its 
own destiny. 

After the lapse of these years, what a sober pleasure 
it is to revisit these scenes and to revive their associa- 
tions 1 For myself, I can truly say, that some of my 
most delightful recollections are those of my college life ; 
some of the most fruitful and valuable instruction and 
discipline of my life spring from its experiences; some 
of the most permanent and valued friendships I have 
ever formed began here in college days. Such, I doubt 
not, would be the testimony of others, if not of most. 
I regard the training and associations of a well governed 
.college as conducive to the best development of all the 
high qualities that constitute true manliness ; and a man- 
hood thus formed not only will not be apt to forget the 
experiences and associations of its boyhood and youth, 



[5] 

but will to the last retain their flavor and freshness. And 
happy is the man that is able to remember, with satisfac- 
tion and enjoyment, in the midst of present cares and 
troubles, the days and pleasures of his spring time ! 

But what changes have taken place in the lapse of 
these forty years ! Within that period, the railroad sys- 
tem of the country has sprung into existence. I rode 
from Cincinnati to Gambier and back, at the beginning 
and close of the college terms, in the stage coach cf the 
day, consuming two days and nearly two nights at each 
trip; and on the 4th of July, 1847 — seven years after 
graduation — I was present at the River and Harbor Con- 
vention at Chicago, where I heard Edward Bates, then a 
lawyer of distinction of the St. Louis Bar, afterward at- 
torney-general under Mr. Lincoln, declare in a public 
speech, which brought him great reputation, that he had 
not then ever seen a railroad ! He could not and did not 
see one at Chicago then. Now a continuous rail crosses 
the continent and connects the Atlantic with the Pacific 
ocean. Add to the railroad the ocean steamship, the 
electric telegraph, and the improved machinery in every 
department of productive industry, and we can under- 
stand how the English speaking race has overrun the 
American continent, colonized the immense islands of the 
southern seas, reclaimed South Africa, revives the youth 
and fertility of Egypt, gives new life to the dead civiliza- 
tion of Asia, has brought Japan within the circle of inter- 



[6] 

national law, and penetrates the barriers of Chinese ob- 
stinacy. 

The material world is well nigh subdued, for it pre- 
sents no obstacles to the path of human improvement 
which the enterprise of the race has not shown itself com- 
petent to overcome. As for the rest, it is but a question 
of time ; and it is not unreasonable to predict that the 
momentum already acquired will lend speed to the rate of 
future progress in the same direction. 

Having in view the brilliant and wonderful discov- 
eries and inventions of recent times, it has been thought 
by some, that they were evidences of advancement merely 
in the direction of materialism. But the fear is not well 
founded. It is the primary and fundamental mission of 
mankind to subdue and cultivate and people the earth, 
and upon this base to rear its intellectual and spiritual 
growth. The very facts and processes of maintaining and 
perpetuating his existence on the earth, involve intel- 
lectual and spiritual exercises ; and the means which he 
masses to promote his physical well-being are all pro- 
ducts of mental activity. So that a suitable develop- 
ment of the life of man, is found in providing the con- 
ditions and means of living. In the order of nature, it 
is not only the primeval instinct, but the first rational 
obligation of the race to provide the means of self- 
preservation, and this, of course, looks first to material 



[7 J 

conditions, as the bodily life is the medium of all higher 
life. 

But the problem of human existence contains other 
elements. It is not how to provide for the life of a 
single specimen of the race, nor even of all its members 
as isolated individuals, but of the whole body and suc- 
cession of its generations as composing human society ; 
* for, without society, individual men must perish. Such 
is the constitution and law of human nature. It is there- 
fore a logical necessity that whatever is essential to the ex- 
istence of human society on the earth, is necessary to 
maintain the existence of the individual members of the 
species. This sounds altogether like a truism, because it 
appeals so directly and immediately for acceptance and be- 
lief to common experience and common sense; yet it will 
be found not an unfruitful one. Neither is it axiomatic 
in the sense of being incapable of proof; for its demon- 
stration is found in the facts of universal consciousness 
and their historical development. 

The union of men in society is not voluntary, nor 
mechanical. It is an association into which men are born 
and for which they are created, resting not on their wills 
but on their nature. And they are joined together, not 
as bricks are joined to form an arch, which may be de- 
stroyed and the bricks remain, but vitally into an organi- 
zation, of which each is a constituent and a function, but 
the dissolution of which, also destroys the individual 



[8] 

members. It is the irrepealable law of human life that 
men can not voluntarily withdraw from human society, its 
obligations, and its opportunities. They may resolve it 
into anarchy by their vices, but there is no social compact 
resting on human consent for its validity, which lies at its 
base. That was a mere fiction, invented as an explana- 
tion and theory of human rights and duties; it served 
only to obscure what it was meant to explain. 

It is a serious and mournful mistake, however, to 
abstract the social state from the concrete man, and to at- 
tribute to society, considered as a self-perpetuating organ- 
ization, the attributes which belong only to the individu- 
als which compose it. If man was made for society, yet, 
in a distinct sense, society was made for man, and is nec- 
essary to him merely because the purposes of individual 
life can be realized only by men in the relation of mutual 
help embodied in the institutions of the social organiza- 
tion. The necessity for society is found in and founded 
on the nature of the individual human being ; and the 
final cause, for the sake of which the social state is or- 
dained, is that thereby that nature may receive its full and 
perfect satisfaction for all its wants, and the fulfillment in 
their due order of its desires. Its perfection will be 
reached in the perfected development and harmonious co- 
operation of all its individual members. A perfect human 
society is simply a society of perfect men and women. 

Social institutions and forms of social life and organ- 



[9] 

ization are merely modes of thinking and acting, grown 
into habits more or less confirmed and permanent, accord- 
ing to which men regulate their conduct toward each other. 
They are, consequently, nothing more than the outward 
expression of internal mental states represented in politi- 
cal governments, in social ranks and orders, in manners, in 
art, in literature, and constitute for each people and each 
age, the visible picture and measure of what we call its 
civilization. Every part of human nature is embodied in 
it, for it is but the unfolding and development of every 
tendency of human thought and feeling. For this rea- 
son, it has been aptly said that history is philosophy 
teaching by example. Every thing that is in man comes 
out in human society. For society is nothing but an ar- 
ray and organization of men in relations predetermined 
by the structure and functions of their common nature, 
varying in times and places according to the various stages 
of its progress and development. 

In this world, of thought and labor, with all its trials, 
its temptations, its pleasures, its disappointments, we re- J 
ceive our real education. It furnishes our post-graduate 
course. In its experiences we learn, or have the oppor- 
tunity to learn wisdom, for it crieth in the streets. / 

After this lapse of time, then, and amid all these 
changes, what do we bring back here to our starting place? 
How have we learned to live, to think, to feel, to act ? 
What have been the lessons of life to us ? I answer to- 



[10] 

day for but one; in what degree that answer may find its 
echo in the hearts of others I can not tell. It is for you 
to say. . . 



The fable of the philosopher who, counting the stars, 
fell into a ditch, is repealted every day. The example has 
become so frequent it is almost a question whether there 
remains a difference between philosophy and stumbling. 
There is scarcely a possible absurdity in physics or meta- 
physics which some eminent logician has not demon- 
strated to be true. It was long ago proven, bv never- 
lying calculations, that the application of steam as a mo- 
tive power could never be of great practical consequence, 
for the reason that a locomotive at a speed of thirty miles 
an hour would solidify the opposing air, and make it im- 
penetrable. The great efforts of philosophy to prove the 
impossibility of the existence of a first cause and creator 
we are all familiar with. The argument is equal not only 
in ingenuity, but in the number of its converts, to that 
by which not only a great but a good man absolutely 
demonstrated the utter want of reality in everything we 
see, hear, or feel. 

The passion for theories seems never slaked. The 
laboratory in which they are evolved is inexhaustible. 
Philosophy spins from its own unsubstantial body the 
endless and attenuated gossamer, and weaves its ever- 



[ 11 J 

renewing web. Ex nihilo^ 7iihil fit — from nothing, nothing 
continually comes. It is the only phenomenon in nature 
that seems to be described by that mysterious mathemati- 
cal formula of the calculus — nothing divided by nothing 
is infinity. Systems and schools of philosophic truth, 
like shadows, come and go — appear like visions, and de- 
part — troop before us, crowding each other, like the mul- 
titudes in the vision of Mirza pressing across the bridge 
of life, and disappear — vanish into thin air, like the im- 
aginations of Macbeth — 

" Like the snowflake in the river, 
A moment white, then gone forever." 

The ever-recurring rise and fall of systems wor- 
shiped at first as truth, and then overthrown and de- 
nounced as delusions, might tempt us, as indeed it has 
persuaded some, to " doubt truth to be a liar," to disbe- 
lieve the possibility of abstract truth or to deny our faith 
in human reason. It would seem, surely, a monstrous 
paradox that truth itself is not true. Yet it is quite cer- 
tain that every abstraction must be taken with grains of 
allowance ; and that many, when applied without correc- 
tion, are gross and fatal deceptions. This is the most 
valuable lesson a young enthusiast ever learns. He is 
happy who learns it while he is yet young and an enthu- 
siast — when to learn it, does not cost a life of disap- 
pointment and his faith in both God and man. 

Many an ardent and generous intellect rushes into the 



[12] 

striio^gle of active life, seeing every thing wrong, and deter- 
mined to make every thing right. He constructs with the 
accuracy of logical demonstration a perfect system of uni- 
versal reform. Society and all its institutions — the fam- 
ily, property, the Church and the State — ail come within 
the scope of his benevolent destruction. He has discov- 
ered a principle — single and simple — of undeniable truth, 
which only needs a rigid and consistent application to 
human affairs to extirpate forever all error and all evil." 
He is confident as victory — as sure as fate. He succeeds, 
he thinks, in one quarter in establishing the needed salva- 
tion. He drives back the waters at one point, and re- 
claims a portion of his promised land. He rushes to an- 
other, and pushes his dikes into the flood, to find that his 
new conquest has only served to flood again the first par- 
adise of his creation. He repeats the experiment till his 
hope or his strength fails, and finally concludes his wisest 
and perhaps his easiest reformation is to reform himself, 
exclaiming with the baffled and dejected Hamlet — 

" The times are out of joint ; oh, cursed spite ! 
That ever I was born to set them right !" " . 

We should not forget — what we are apt to forget- 
that we live on the earth, and are weighted down to it. 
We can not poise ourselves in mid-air or go ballooning 
through the heavens at will. There are necessary condi- 
tions of correct thought — necessary relations to be marked 
and calculated between our lives and truths, by which. 



[ 13 ] 

though these be fixed and shining as the stars, we must 
adjust the parallax created by the moving of events. The 
sun appears to revolve around the earth, and it once was 
heresy to deny its reality. The fact would never have 
been discovered except by close and long-studied compari- 
sons of their relations in space with other independent 
bodies, from which the true center of motion was finally 
inferred. The hand of man has never described a perfect 
circle, nor an accurate triangle; and the whole science of 
pure mathematics, withal so practical when rightly applied, 
is based on a system of mere possibilities, unattainable 
by human art. True as the magnet to the pole, has be- 
come a proverb for the truthfulness of truth, yet the com- 
mon seaman daily allows for the variation of the needle, 
that he may not run upon the rocks. - Truth, in general, 
is only truth by approximation. It is the estimate of a 
possible future ; the picture of an imaginary present, in 
which the rough and unfitting edges of actual life are re- 
duced, and annihilated in the distance of an infinite per- 
spective. The ideal is that possible but unattainable sum 
that represents an infinite series of imperfect but approxi- 
mating developments, which always and forever will lack 
a necessary term for its completion. It is the ladder of 
Jacob's dream. It rests upon the earth, but is lost to 
human sight in the distant splendors of the heavens. 

However important and certain any truth may be, it 
is not the only one in the world. No man has a right to 



[ 14 ] 

commit himself to it, to the exclusion of any other. To 
do so, is to begin his departure from sanity both of mind 
and morals. In the matrimony of truth, polygamy is the 
divine command. We must wed all or none. Every 
truth limits and connects every other — one implies all^ 
while partial truth is simply infinite error. The light 
broken through the prism separates into every dissim.ilar 
hue. It is only the united and reconstructed ray that 
sheds the untainted transparency of heaven. So there is 
a natural hierarchy of truths. Some are subordinate and 
some are chief. Each is sovereign in his own fief, as long 
as he owns allegiance to the lord to whom he owes service. 
But any retainer who magnifies the vassal, rebels against 
the lord of the manor, and throws the whole kingdom 
into anarchy. It is a federal system, a natural league of 
equals and co-ordinates, each supreme within its own ju- 
risdiction, each limited and defined by the rest, the integ- 
rity of each depending on the preservation of the just re- 
lation of all. 

The maxim is old and trite, that there are two sides 
to every question, but it is of immense practical value, 
and constantly forgotten. The world is full of contro- 
versy, great and small, and has always been. Devotees 
see but their own side, and maintain to the death that 
what they see not, is not, and that all who will not see as 
they see, should be punished with loss of sight. The 
folly of the knights who quarreled and fought about the 



[15] 

shield that was both gold and silver is seen in modern 
crusaders — never more than half right, when not all 
wrong, yet full of intolerance and persecution ; slaying 
all who will dispute, though as nearly right as themselves. • 

He who attaches himself to a partial truth commits 
all the mischief of an apostle of total and absolute evil.^^ 
He worships stocks and stones, a deformed and hideous 
idol, the workmanship of his own ignorant hands, instead 
of the living God, The human mind, as long as it re- 
mains sane, is so constituted that it can not believe a lie, 
or love absolute evil. Man was made in the image of 
God, and that image still remains. The law of truth was 
written in divine traces upon the tablets of his heart, and 
there still lingers in his conscience enough of the original 
light, even if it be but a twilight — a mere crepusculum — 
by which to read its forfeiture and count its penalties. 
He receives falsehood in the shape of truth, and, glorying 
in apparent good, does evil and evil continually. For 
truth, out of place or out of time, is a fallen angel — a 
spirit of evil and darkness. It can only mislead and de- 
lude. It is the author of schism, of faction, of division, 
of discord, of controversy, of hatred, persecution, and 
war; the enemy of peace, of harmony, of conciliation, of 
unity. Each man thinks only his own thoughts, knows ■ 
only his own shibboleth, and the confusion of tongues 
that fell vipon the builders of Babel prevails forever. 

Time, if not of the essence of a truth, is, at least. 



[ 16 ] 

one of the relations in which it must be considered. In 
a certain sense, doubtless, it may be said that truth is im- 
mortal — 

" The eternal years of God are hers ! " 

And equally that it is immutable, if we apply it only to 
that perfect but ideal plan, according to which God in the 
course of ages means to develop in Nature and in man 
his own absolute perfections. But, for the practical pur- 
poses of life, the doctrines we accept, and which mankind 
from time to time in its history is compelled to accept, 
are temporary and mutable. They are but the scaffold- 
ings by which the slow work of ages upon the everlasting 
temple of truth is carried forward and upward in its pro- 
gress to perfection, -'^ruth, in this sense, has its times 
and fashions, and changes from day to day and from age 
to age. What is truth to one generation ceases to be 
such to another ; what is evident of one people is evi- 
dently false of another; what is wholesome aliment of 
progress in one nation is pernicious and destructive in 
another. The reception and practice of truth is matter 
of growth. Mankind are self-educated into a gradual re- 
cognition of the ultimate truth. The light breaking in 
the East chases one by one the retreating shadows of the 
darkness, and from dawn to twilight gradually beams into 
a broader day. What is true to the young is not always to 
the old — each generation lives by ideas of its own — each 
nation and each age develops its peculiar experience and 



[ 17] 

delivers traditions in forms differing from all others. 
Time brings forth new births in the order of nature, and 
the knowledge which is useful comes with the need. A 
discovery made before the world is ready to receive and 
use it, is without value, and brings no advantage to the 
ingenious speculator who hits upon it. It is revived 
when it is really wanted, and the genius that adapts and 
applies it, is reverenced and rewarded. So, on the other 
hand, we know and feel there are many things in society 
inconsistent with the theory of human happiness and per- 
fection. Yet they are necessary results of previous im- 
perfections, and the necessary antecedents of future im- 
provements. If abstractly wrong, they are nevertheless 
historically right — they may be evil as compared with what 
is better but not practicable, but are good in relation to 
what would be inevitable without them. They are provi- 
dential, and therefore wise in the time and the circum- 
stances, and only to be destroyed and removed as Provi- 
dence opens the way and prepares the substitute. It may 
be true, for example, that there is a demonstrable form of 
society fitted to the exclusion of all others, to man, in a 
state of possible perfection, in which the theory of human 
duties and human rights would be exactly fulfilled. Yet 
it is folly to deny that existing governments, even the 
most despotic, necessary consequences of the imperfect 
development of the individual man, are the very best in 



[18] 

the providential order of events for the purposes for 
which they are permitted. 

There is no excuse for a man who refuses to practice 
the truth he has, because there is more that he has not ; 
for the honest following of what he really believes is most 
certain to prove the right and make the unknown plain. 
But humility, the mother of moderation, always walks 
with the faithful searcher after truth : while bigots and 
fanatics, if they had sense enough to see, would confess 
that the very necessity for the intolerance which they 
practice is absolute proof that they were wrong ; for if 
they possessed the whole truth the world would recognize 
and admit it. ^ '^ 
'^ We are prone to speak of our own notions of right 
and wrong as being in conformity with the certain will of 
God, and thence deduce the right to enforce them at every 
hazard and in the face of every consequence. The fallacy 
is expressed in the form of a maxim, embodying not only 
something plausible, but heroic — Duty is ours, results 
are God's. If it is limited to this, that when duty is 
plain, personal consequences are not to be shunned, it is 
true enough, for the dignity of life is of more value than 
living. In such cases we have only to rely on Him who 
preserved Shadrach and his companions in the fiery fur- 
nace. But if it is supposed to furnish any definition of 
duty, irrespective of the circumstances that attend, or are 
likely to result from human action, it is a deceitful and 



[ 19] 

dangerous fallacy. What duty is, in particular cases, is 
oftener and more correctly learned from a foresight of the 
probable consequences of proposed conduct than from 
any abstract and general theory. To teach us that fore- 
sight is the value of all experience — of all history, which 
is but the recorded and aggregate experience of the world. 
If we go to the highest authority — the revealed word of 
God — we find there lessons of duty, taught in parable 
and in prophecy, in the recorded lives of nations and the 
biographies of men — practical precepts, but no abstract 
doctrines. It is a wonderful fact, and one of deep and 
wide significance, that while whole libraries of systematic 
theology have been written, by way of gloss and comment 
upon the sacred volumes, and a thousand warring sects 
have built theories of salvation upon separate texts, there 
is not to be found within the lids of the Bible the formal 
statement of a single doctrine of dogmatic theology, or 
the inculcation of any system of theoretical ethics. There 
is nothing in it absolute and transcendental. It is a man- 
ual of practical life — a plain code of practical duty. It 
was written — not by philosophers — but by the inspiration 
of God. 

And when we undertake to interpret present duty by 
our own opinion of what should be, we should distinguish 
between the present and eventual will of God. Many 
things are permitted which will not last, and God's will is 
progressive. What He ultimately intends as the final con- 



[20] 

dition of men on earth we may imagine, but can not 
know ; and how He designs, if at all, to remove the evils 
which we see and feel, is a mystery still and perhaps for- 
ever in the womb of time. His ways are not as our ways, 
nor His thoughts as our thoughts. To Him a thousand 
years are but as one day. We are but instruments, not 
causes, and responsible only for the virtue of our individ- 
ual lives. It is the function and prerogative of the Al- 
mighty to govern the world. The man who rightly gov- 
erns himself has contributed as much as is expected of 
him. -" 

It has sometimes happened that men of active sym- 
pathies and determined benevolence have been aroused to 
an impatient zeal in the presence of colossal evils, and 
unwilling to wait the course of Providence, have essayed 
to cut the knot they could not untie. We are not called 
upon to admire the heat of their zeal as much as the 
warmth of their benevolence. They forget what others 
can not fail to see — that good intentions often enlist the 
service of bad passions ;.so that it constantly ^occurs that 
the inevitable opposition to all radical change afforded by 
the mere vis inertia of society excites the same evil spirit 
in those who seek reform that they set out to expel. 
There are evils inbred in human nature and rooted in the 
very structure of society, which exist to-day as they have 
always. They seem to be the general sin of the genera- 
tion ; the common affliction of the whole community ; the 



[ 21 ] 

hereditary curse of the race. No one feels more responsi- 
ble for their existence than another ; and many, who 
would, see no way for individual escape. Every one is 
involved, and no one is guilty. How to deal with such 
anomalies is one of the greatest problems in individual 
conduct in every age. And it is in just such cases where 
prudence, wisdom, charity, and faith in Providence are 
most needed that folly and fanaticism are most rash, ex- 
asperating, and determined. 

The progress of society is gradual, imperceptible, 
and indirect. Its orbit is irregular and eccentric, defying 
calculations and predictions, yet none the less certain and 
determined. The line of beauty is a curve. So is the 
path of reform. It goes, indeed, upon straight lines, but 
infinitely small, and continually changing their direction. 
It is impossible to tell where one step ends and the other 
begins. ^ 

" The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds, 
Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes 
The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path 
Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid, 
Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches. 
My son ! the road the human being travels, 
That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow 
The river's course, the valley's playful windings, 
Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines, 
Honoring the holy bounds of property ! 
And thus, secure, though late, leads to its end." 



[22] . 

The world, moral as well as physical, must move in the 
mass. The attraction of cohesion binds together the ele- 
ments of social as it does of material existence, and gives 
unity to the race, not only of the same generation, but by 
connecting with the present, those, gone and yet to come. 
You may turn a kaleidoscope which way you please, and 
it will continually show the most regular and beautiful 
distribution of colors and of shapes. But society can not 
be treated like a plaything. It has a life and a law of its 
own. Its life is its unity, its law is its growth. Its gov- 
ernment, its organization, its institutions are but effects 
and results ; their cause is the nature of the individual 
man. They are determined by the amount of knowledge 
diffused ; the quantity and power of the active virtue of 
the people ; the intellectual and moral habits and attain- 
ment of the time. 

The social constitution of a people, fortunately. Is 
beyond the power of any individual man. It can, indeed, 
be effectually subverted by no force less than the power of 
the whole. Every individual is allowed his legitimate in- 
fluence. His significance is never lost. Whatever he 
amounts to is represented and counted in the grand total. 
His whole force is realized and employed. Just as in the 
figure and expression of the human frame, every nerve 
and muscle forms a feature and produces an effect, so in 
the social frame every individual character is reflected and 
expressed. Beyond that, the power of the individual over 



[23] . 

his age can not go. To that point he influences and mod- 
ifies it ; but its character and meaning are determined by 
the sum of the influences of all. Just so far, then, as 
there is a change in the individual opinions, habits and 
manners of a people, there will be a corresponding change 
in their government, laws, and institutions. 

That correspondence is social order. It is the true 
name of public liberty ; the vital atmosphere of individ- 
ual freedom ; the solid basis and principle of human pro- 
gress ; the essential condition and fixed law of all bene- 
ficial and rational change ; the whole rationale of self-gov- 
ernment. On this rock is built the common sense of 
social improvement ; all else is Utopia, the pleasant, but 
unreal dreams of philosophers, the crazy imaginations of 
fanatics, or the violent and bloody desires of selfish revo- 
lutionists. 

It is futile to expect to reform man or perfect society 
by the regulations and penalties of human laws. The 
powers of government can never be worse employed than 
in forcing upon a people institutions not indigenous to 
their existing intellectual and moral conditions. Laws 
but indicate and register the moral temperature of the 
nation. They have nothing to do with its generation. 
It would be as ridiculous to attribute sunshine and storm 
to the rise and fall in the barometer, as to change the 
moral condition of a people by subverting their institu- 
tions and substituting new ones. The change must pro- 



# [ 24 ] 

ceed from themselves ; and, when effected, is but the evi- 
dence and expression, of the prior and deeper change with- 
in which wrought it. 

'^We rely entirely too much upon what we call gov- 
ernment, and expect more from its agency than it can 
possibly accomplish. Its sphere of useful action, indeed, 
is very limited, if we mean what is commonly meant — 
the political government of the State. Very few, and 
those of minor importance, of human interests are di- 
rectly confided to its care. The most, and most impor- 
tant, are represented in what may be called social govern- 
ment, whose institutions grow out of the necessary, 
though seemingly voluntary course of men ; whose laws 
are the public opinions, but entirely outside the sphere of 
the penalties and sanctions of the political State. We 
feel the restraint of government in but few particulars ; 
we scarcely ever come in contact with its operations. It 
rarely, and in but a gross way, ever becomes palpable. 
Yet how infinite and various are the ties of sympathy and 
interest that bind us to the community in which we live! 
How completely dependent upon human associations are 
we not only for comfort, but for existence ! What deso- 
lation, even death is there in the thought of absolute iso- 
lation ! In every thing which constitutes our life; in 
dress, manners, and style of speech ; in the regulation of 
the family ; in the intercourse of business — in fashions, 
customs, habits of every sort — in every relation and pur- 



[ 25 ] 

suit of life — we acknowledge the presence and power of a 
law, without the form of a statute, proceeding from an 
invisible authority, self-executing, whose penalties we fear 
but can not name, whose sanctions we feel in our own 
hearts, and read in the faces of our neighbors, which we 
never question and dare not disobey. Its jurisdiction 
covers the whole field of human interests and duty. Its 
power to protect and punish extends wherever there is 
life left in conscience, or remains a human sympathy to 
pulsate. Its scope is the whole world of fellowship. Its 
power is the opinion of mankind. On this base rests 
every human institution — even the political State, for 
from it springs that sense of obligation to support the 
civil laws, without which the State could not command 
obedience or enforce compliance. >/ 

*^ Here we reach the goal of our inquiries; here we 
find the source and spring of the perpetual youth and 
vigor of society, the vis medicatrix naturos of all political 
and social evil, the conservative principle of a progress- 
ive social order and peace, the trier of truth, the test of 
error, the sure enemy and eradicator of abuse, the social 
salvation of the world. It is the common sense of man- 
kind — the deliberated will and judgment of the race, in- 
formed and inspired by the Divine Spirit. Vox populi^ vox 
Dei — not in the heathen, but in the Christian sense — not 
the clamor of the multitude and the mob, crying for the 
release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Christ — not the 



V. 



[ 26 ] 

passing judgment of a nation or even a generation — but 
the calm and settled conviction, tested by practical experi- 
ence, of the reason and conscience of men, purged of 
every perverting influence, and educated and inspired by 
supernatural and divine forces — the voice that speaks 
from God manifest in the flesh, the Word that dwelt 
amongst us, and which, being incarnate, speaks with Di- 
vine wisdom and authority, out of the bosom of human- 
ity. 

The science and prowess of individual great men are 
useful and admirable. But greater than all great men is 
the greatness of the people from whom they spring. We 
sometimes think, when a sage or hero dies, there dies with 
him the hope of a nation or the world. But the people 
still live, all-sufficient to themselves, and the world goes 
on as ever, and feels not the loss. Great men are so not 
by origination, but derivation. It is humanity that is 
greatness, and imparts it to the individual. It is the aggre- 
gate man that is always and equally great. It is the peo- 
ple who make the man and endow him with their great- 
ness. They embody in him their wants and their desires ; 
they vitalize him with their energy ; they inspire him 
with their ideas ; their activity works in his will ; their 
genius fills his soul ; they love him because he is their 
child ; they worship him because he is their work ; they 
follow him because his name is their banner. He is their 
representative and delegate — the instrument of their will. 



[ 27 ] 

He thinks their thoughts ; he utters their words ; he per- 
forms their desires. His whole authority is as their min- 
ister. They confer upon him all the insignia and robes of 
his office. Their power is all his force ; without them he 
is no longer great — is nothing ; when he deserts them or 
dies, they do without him — if necessary, they call from 
their ranks his successor. 

When science doubts, and scientific men divide, to 
whom lies the appeal ? To the people. What is the tri- 
bunal to which, in the last resort, every question of sci- 
ence, of art, of statesmanship, of history, of jurispru- 
dence, of theology, is referred ? The tribunal of the 
people. Every controversy, whether of philosophy or 
practical life, is submitted to them. They pass upon all 
questions ; they settle every dispute. Their judgments 
alone are permanent and infallible. 

We can recognize in the operations of the common 
sense of mankind a combination, of respect for the expe- 
rience of the world, with an instinctive love of practical 
truth, and an abiding faith in the superintending prov- 
idence of God. 

Each generation of men has the instinctive capacity 
to preserve for itself and transmit to its successor its so- 
cial inheritance. It receives into its keeping what the 
wisdom of the past has matured for its use, and adds to 
the store what its own experience approves. It has been 
educated in the institutions which it finds have preceded 



[28] 

it, and clings to them with instinctive respect and affec- 
tion. It does not care to inquire into the reasons of their 
introduction. They exist and have existed — that is 
enough. It furnishes, at least in the first instance, an all- 
sufficient reason why they should remain. It was the 
work of their fathers — it has become a part of themselves. 
If this were otherwise, the world would have to be created 
anew with every generation — chaos would be repeated in 
every age of the world — and each successive race would 
leave it just where it was left by the first. The flood of 
mortality which overtakes each generation would drown 
all remembrances of its work, without the ark of history 
to bear safely over the waters of destruction all that is 
worthy to be preserved. The world would have no past ; 
without that, the future is impossible; and the present 
being the union of both, could not be. The loss of its 
memory is, therefore, the world's perpetual end. Without 
history there could be no prophecy, and the possibility of 
experience would be prevented by its perpetual loss. The 
fable of Sisyphus toiling up the ascent, with his ever- 
descending stone, would be the type of the fruitless tor- 
ment of our race. The experience of the world is the 
capital with which each generation commences the busi- 
ness of life. The records of history contain the accurate 
accounts of its value. In proportion as we husband it, 
will we prosper and succeed. "^ 
<^- The world never listens to an attack upon an exist- 



[29] 

ing institution merely because it is old. There is a pas- 
sion for novelty, but it never disturbs the common sense 
of mankind. He who grounds his opposition upon 
reason succeeds in obtaining a hearing but slowly. 

. It is not sufficient to show that the alleged evil is 
wrong in principle. It must be proved guilty of practical 
injustice and wrong. Social institutions were not con- 
structed according to theory, and they will not be changed 
upon theory. The world, in deciding the question, will 
never go beyond the actual case. It stands upon the 
merits of the particular instance, delivers a judgment 
upon the facts before it, but never utters or respects what 
is obiter dictum. This is wisdom beyond all philosophy ; 
for no man can foretell how many and what others, each 
change makes inevitable ; therefore the wise man never 
innovates. We sometimes see changes in legislation, ap- 
parently trivial and immaterial, unexpectedly work the 
most serious alterations in what it was never intended to 
disturb. It is so in every thing else. We must not 
merely know that an evil exists. We ought to know be- 
fore complaining what other and perhaps greater evils it 
prevents. The foolish farmer kills the bird that steals his 
cherries. He soon finds that the little animal he has 
slain was only taking pay for destroying the hordes of in- 
sects he can not reach, and who now with impunity de- 
vour his tree. 

The evil must not only be apparent, but also the 



[30] 

remedy. It must be manifest, not only what is to be got 
rid of, and how, but what substitute is to replace it. A 
physician may be well satisfied of the existence of disease, 
but unless the symptoms also indicate the remedy, he will 
do nothing. The quack, no doubt, would be ready to 
prescribe. It is always ea^y to destroy. To reconstruct 
is more difficult. It would not be remarkable if an in- 
genious casuist should be able to prove som.e defect in 
every existing institution of society — to show a want of 
conformity, in each part, with some theoretical standard 
of perfection. But before abandoning the civilization we 
have attained, we should, unquestionably, not only de- 
mand to be convinced of its imperfection, but require to 
be pointed to some practical system in its stead more 
free of. defect. 

Thus the world, by its practical wisdom, reconciles 
the reverence of antiquity with a faithful and instinctive 
love of truth, with that truth which the time makes mani- 
fest and the necessary occasion verifies. It is the union 
of forces, which while operating in different directions, do 
not in reality oppose, but produce that healthful repose 
of society which is not mere inertia and stagnant rest, but 
results from an equilibrium of motion. -^ 

The philosophy of reform, established by the com- 
mon sense of the world, is based upon an implicit and 
unquestioning faith in the superintending Providence of 
God. It is one of the instincts of human nature, and is 



[31] 

exerted as unconsciously as we do the involuntary power 
of vital motion. The blood circulates through artery and 
vein — the air fills and recedes from the lungs — the beauty 
of Nature is painted upon the retina of the eye with- 
out the exercise of volition. So man turns to God with- 
out argument or effort as the author of the Secrets of 
Nature and the Mysteries of Life, causing all things to 
work together according to the counsels of His will, and 
carrying forward in His own way and by His own means 
the eternal plan of His wisdom. If there be anv thino- 
beyond our comprehension, we must refer it to His om- 
niscience. If there be any thing beyond our power, we 
must leave it to His omnipotence. No casualty can hap- 
pen which He has not foreseen. There is no exiaency 
possible for which He has not made adequate provision. 
To him who recognizes the hand of Providence in all the 
affairs of men, the irremediable disorders of society cause 
no alarm. He knows that Time, which is the chariot of 
God, will bring the consummation of his hopes. He 
manifests no impious impatience at a delay whose wisdom 
he can not deny. He is unwilling even to wish that the 
established course of God's moral government of the 
world should give place to his own imperfect and inade- 
quate conceptions of right. The path of his individual 
duty lies plain before him. He follows that; conscious 
that to that extent he is contributing to the eventual 
triumph of the right; and leaves the rest to God, He 



[32] 

can at least set the example of a virtuous life. No one 
can do better; perhaps none can do more. If we all did 
as well, there would be no evil to lament. 

That much is within the power of us all. If to-day 
every one did as well as he might, to-morrow there would 
be heaven upon earth ; all evil would soon be banished, and 
society would become regenerate and perfect. The task 
seems easy, and is as easy as it seems. It is within the 
compass of every one, no matter what his station or de- 
gree. Here is the true plane of human equality, for each 
man's duties are proportioned to his capacity and oppor- 
tunity. Learning and ignorance, power and weakness, 
rank and insignificance, are equalized by a scale of infinite 
impartiality. None are too high or too low to escape 
the accuracy of its measurement. Every man has his 
place and his work. So far as the individual is concerned 
there is no difference in their dignity and importance. 
The humblest man is trustee for God and the world, and 
charged with a daily round of duties, each fraught with 
interests of infinite importance. In the discharge of these 
no matter how trivial, lies the serious and sublime dig- 
nity of life. 

It takes no transcendent philosophy to instruct us. 
Each step leads to the next. We can see but a little way 
at a time, but that little is enough. It is as far as we are 
required to go. When we have accomplished that, we 
find that we can see beyond, at least one step farther. 



[33] 

Each day brings its own duties. Each day's duties done, 
fit us for those of the morrow. To-day is the ever-pres- 
ent portal of eternity. It opens to all who tread its 
threshold with courage and faith, and, widening as they 
advance, ushers them, from the perplexing labyrinth of 
life, into the broad and lustrous glories of the life to 
come. 



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